A Reflection on Gender, Agency, and Quiet Determination.

On the first day of English 351: Topics in Contemporary Literature, Dr. Kate Lechler asked us why we wanted to take her class and what we hoped to gain from it. My green gel pen danced across my legal pad as I answered. I signed up for a class on fairy tales primarily because I knew the class would likely help me write my honors thesis on Young Adult Dystopian novels; as I read titles such as The Hunger Games, Divergent, The Uglies and so on, I noticed fairy tale roots. There’s something cautionary and magical about those novels that always especially reminded me of “Little Red Riding Hood” and her quest into the unknown. Further, the focus on a female protagonist in dystopia links it to fairy tales; whether or not the female lead is a hero, there are countless tales where the woman is the star. When I saw Cinder on the list of possible novel adaptations I could work with, I jumped at the chance. The novel combined everything I had hoped for coming into the class, far exceeding my expectation: a female protagonist, a young adult dystopian setting, and rooted in fairy tales. Cinder, as I read it for the first time struck me as incredibly weak. Cinder felt too close somehow to her source material. I had difficulty connecting to the her, just like I had difficulty as a young child connecting to Cinderella. The original princess was boring, her tale stiff and I couldn’t see any of myself in her. This wasn’t necessarily true of Cinder, but something about her still threw me off.

"Cinder fan art" by mirapau

When it came to choosing a focus for the paper, gender and agency were my initial interests; fairy tales, particularly princess tales, are fraught with the damsel in distress characters. In a modern context, I wondered if Cinder fit into the “strong independent woman” ala Suzanne Collins’s Katniss. When I first went back to reevaluate her, I was surprised that my reaction to the cyborg differed the second time around. Cinder certainly has issues finding her voice and her independence, but she reminded me less and less of the Cinderella waiting around for someone to break her out of her abusive home life and more like a teenage girl moving into adulthood and grappling with the responsibility of agency. It took me a long time to find the images I wanted to include with the paper. I wanted images that showed Cinder as the woman she is at the end of the novel: strong, perhaps scared, but most of all in control of her own life. The first image, my header, I chose because there was beautiful quiet purposefulness in Cinder’s face. The artist captured a piece of Cinder I loved and it showed her using her skills; what’s so remarkable about Cinder is she retains much of Cinderella—her kindness, her quiet courage in the face of abuse, her dreams of something bigger—while adding a new layer of worth outside of the typical “pretty nice” princess.

"Linh Cinder" by blindthistle

"Cinderella" by Charles Landseer

The painting by Charles Landseer was actually the first image I chose for the paper. I wanted something that spoke to Cinderella’s passivity; here, she sits, looking lovingly on the prince who has crossed the whole town searching for her. The whole painting is orchestrated around Cinderella, but she seems distanced from the situation itself. Something about Landseer’s Cinderella intrigues me, leading to its inclusion on the site. Next is my favorite image; Cinder is running from the ball, a pivotal moment in the novel. The artist portrays the emotion in the moment so well. Cinder is scared, she’s unsure of her next move. But she’s making a move. The image has the car Cinder planned on escaping New Beijing crashed in the background; that really hit home that Cinder in this moment is alone. Her contingency plan is gone and her prince isn’t so valiant after all. However, there’s a scared determination in her facial expression and her body language. It really highlights the agency the girl finds at the end of the novel.

Last up is a screenshot from Disney’s 2015 Cinderella film. The image is sweeping, beautiful, so different from the previous image, and yet there’s something similar. Cinderella in this picture shares the quiet determination of Cinder running from the ball. She’s perhaps nervous of being caught by her stepmothers, of humiliation. However, she’s determined. I had never thought of Cinderella as determined until I saw this picture. Perrault’s fairy tale always gave me a submissive impression. But here, she reminds me more of Cinder than of Perrault’s princess.

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